"Which means he is going to get at least some of them," Janaki said grimly. "He may be willing to go on burying his head in the sand while the tide comes in, and he may be perfectly willing for everyone else to drown with him rather than give in, but the rest of the Conclave isn't going to be that capricious."
"That's my reading of the situation, too," Velvelig agreed. "Since the only two options are to give him at least some of what he wants or to start a second war between Uromathia and the rest of the planet to force him to submit, I'm guessing he'll probably end up settling for two or three concessions. Which, I'm sure I hardly need to point out to you, are going to be the ones he figures are best calculated to hamstring your father's ultimate authority over him."
Janaki nodded, and Velvelig shrugged.
"That's why you're not going to get a rest stop here after all, Janaki," he said quietly. "I'll take the rest of the wounded off your hands, and we'll provide you with additional teams for your ambulances so that you can make better time with the unwounded prisoners, but I want you back in Sharona as quickly as I can get you there. Whatever Chava's up to, your father doesn't need his heir universes away at a time like this. In fact," he looked sympathetically at the younger man, "I'm afraid your days in uniform are over. We can't afford to have anything happen to you now."
Janaki wanted to protest. In fact, he started to, then stopped as an echo of the Glimpse he'd had of Kinlafia and Andrin rippled through the back of his mind. It remained frustratingly unclear?probably because he himself wasn't in it?but something about what Velvelig had just said had waked that echo. He knew that much, even if he had no idea at all what it had been. And whatever it was, Velvelig was undoubtedly correct. What had been an acceptable risk in peacetime for the heir to the Winged Crown was not an acceptable risk in wartime for the man who might be about to become heir to the crown of all Sharona.
"I understand, Sir," he said finally, and Velvelig nodded in approval. He'd seen the protests fluttering in the backs of Janaki's eyes, and he'd also seen the Calirath sense of duty which kept those protests silent.
"I know you do," the regiment-captain said quietly. "And for what it's worth?and it may not feel like it's worth very much at this particular moment?I think it's a damned shame. About the uniform, I mean. There are some people who simply wear it without ever learning what it really means. You already knew that when you arrived. I think you would have been one of the really good ones."
"Actually, that means quite a lot coming from you, Sir," Janaki replied. He inhaled again, then stood. "With your permission, Sir, I'd better go and alert the Platoon that we won't be staying over after all. At least everyone ought to have time to get a hot bath and a sitdown meal in a proper mess hall before we hit the road again."
"Of course." Velvelig stood as well, then reached across the desk to offer his right hand. "Good luck, Your Highness. And I hope you won't object if a heathen Arpathian spends the odd night hour praying for you and your father." He smiled crookedly as the prince clasped his hand firmly. "After all, it could hardly hurt, could it?"
Petty Armsman Harth Loumas sat in the hot patch of shade cast by the small canvas tarp and tried to ignore the insects whining around his ears. He told himself that, despite the bugs' irritation quotient, he couldn't really object to his present duty. Or, he shouldn't, anyway; obviously he could, because he was. All the same, he knew that most of his fellow PAAF troopers would willingly have exchanged places with him. For one thing, he did get to sit in the shade, which was more than they got to do. He knew that, and in an intellectual sort of way, he actually agreed. But that wasn't exactly the same thing as saying that he actively enjoyed sitting here sweating.
He checked his watch, then closed his eyes again and reached out with his Talent. Loumas had extremely good range for a Plotter, but he was still limited to no more than four miles, and he had to concentrate hard, at any range beyond about two miles, if he wanted to separate human life essences from those of other animals. It took him a good twenty minutes to sweep the total area he could See from his present location, and the portal itself created a huge blind spot in his coverage. Since no Talent could operate through a portal, he had to move physically around to its far aspect in this bug-infested swamp if he wanted to See around it. That was why he was parked at one end of the portal with Tairsal chan Synarch, Company-Captain chan Tesh's senior Flicker. They were outside both the sandbagged outer picket posts and the main defensive position chan Tesh had thrown up on the Hell's Gate side of the portal, but they could shift to the other aspect of the portal by simply walking around it in this universe, which took all of fifteen minutes.
It also meant that if anything did turn up, chan Synarch could nip around to the Hell's Gate side of the portal and Flick a message straight back to chan Tesh and Company-Captain Halifu in a handful of seconds.
Loumas and chan Synarch changed positions every hour on the hour, moving around to the far aspect, in order to maintain a three hundred sixty-degree watch. It was, quite frankly, boring as hell, but it was also necessary. No one had any idea where the enemy troops?the "Arcanans," as they called themselves?had come from. Platoon-Captain Arthag had led sweeps a full fifteen miles out in every direction without finding any sign of human habitation. He'd lost one man and two horses to the local crocodiles in the process, and Company-Captain chan Tesh had decided there was no point in sweeping further out. No officer worth his uniform liked losing men for no return, and if there'd been any evidence of where these people had come from, or how they'd gotten here, some indication of it should have turned up inside that thirty-mile circle. Besides, he hadn't wanted Arthag and any of his men that far out from the field fortifications he'd thrown up here at the portal itself.
Frankly, Loumas was beginning to wonder if there might actually be anything to the wild rumors about flying beasts. He wasn't certain where they'd started. The Arcanan prisoners had all been sent further back, safely beyond the possibility of any attempt to rescue them. Loumas would have preferred for at least some of them to have been kept closer to hand, where the local garrison might have been able to begin learning their language and possibly conduct some useful interrogations. On the other hand, he understood just how vital an intelligence resource those prisoners were, and he could hardly blame Company-Captain chan Tesh or Company-Captain Halifu for wanting to make sure nothing happened to them.
But if none of the prisoners had been spreading ridiculous stories about huge, winged creatures, Loumas had no idea where they might have come from.
Probably a combination of sheer boredom and the fact that we don't know diddily about these people?except that they've got some fucking dangerous weapons!
He snorted in what he wanted to be amusement but which was tinged with something entirely too much like fear for comfort. He reminded himself that the other side obviously didn't know anything more about Sharona and the capabilities of Sharonian weapons than he did about their weapons. The way they'd tried to defend this very portal was proof enough of that! But that didn't make him?or anyone else?any happier about confronting the completely unknown, and the eerie way these people had somehow managed to establish their base camp here without anything remotely like roads or leaving a single boat behind didn't make it any better.
Well, at least they won't be sneaking up on us, he told himself firmly. It may be boring, but I'm damned sure not?
His thoughts froze and he stiffened, focusing in tightly. Then he swore aloud.
Damn! I wish we had a decent Distance Viewer! he thought.
His Talent would let him spot living creatures, but what he Saw of them was always … fuzzy. The creatures themselves were clear enough, but exactly what they might be doing, or exactly what their surroundings were, was often almost impossible to discern. Half the time, he had to extrapolate, and like most Plotters, he was fairly good at that. But extrapolation depended on some sort of familiarity with what the people he was Plotting were likely to be doing, and who the hells knew what these people were likely to be up to? If he'd had a Distance Viewer to team with, he'd have been able to coach the other Talent into finding the proper distance and bearing, and the Distance Viewer would have been able to See exactly what was happening.